News / Local
Job seekers bay for officials' blood
13 May 2015 at 03:38hrs | Views
Scores of job seekers throng government offices in Bulawayo
ANTI-riot police were called to maintain order at the Matabeleland South Provincial Medical Directors offices in Bulawayo yesterday after hundreds of job seekers charged at government officials and threatened them for allegedly only recruiting people who had paid bribes.
Job seekers from Bulawayo have thronged the provincial offices since Monday after an employment notice allegedly issued by the Health Service Board (HSB) to fill vacant posts circulated on WhatsApp.
Ambulance drivers, security guards, office orderlies, nurse aides, drivers and cooks were some of the posts that were advertised.
According to the notice, applicants were expected to access application forms from rural health care centres, district and provincial offices as well as from the provincial medical directors' offices.
Efforts to get a comment from Matabeleland South provincial PMD Dr Rudo Chikodzore and the Health Services Board were fruitless, but an official, who was part of the recruitment team addressed the crowd in the presence of the police.
He told the job seekers to leave the premises as they had recruited enough people for the day and urged them to come and try their luck today.
He also told them that they were not allowed to sleep at the offices.
When The Chronicle visited the PMC's offices yesterday, hundreds of job seekers, most of them women carrying babies on their backs were threatening health officials demanding explanations.
The job seekers said they were not happy with the recruitment process and accused nealth officials of accepting application forms from those who had offered them money.
Most of them said they went to the offices as early as 2 AM while others slept there only to be told that they had recruited enough for the day.
"This is not fair. I came here at about 10PM last night and I was expecting to be one of the first people to be served this morning. More people joined us in the early hours and we hoped it would be a first-comc- first-serve process," said job seeker Nokuzola Tshuma.
"We were shocked when one of the officials came to tell us that they had reached the limit of 60 people for the day?
Tshuma alleged that the officials were only serving those who had paid them $15 each.
"While we were still wondering how they reached that number, we learnt that people were being ordered to pay $15 each if they wanted to be recruited without joining the queue," added Tshuma.
"We saw people moving in and out of the offices while we patiently waited outside the gate. Little did we know that we were waiting here for nothing. We demanded to know what was happening and they responded by calling the police."
Another job seeker Phathisiwe Khumalo said it was unfortunate that they were being treated as criminals for demanding transparency.
"We simply asked them to tell us why they were asking people to pay money, which was not indicated on the HSB notice. They should have told us that those without money should not waste their time, instead of letting us queue here for several hours for nothing," she said.
Job seekers from Bulawayo have thronged the provincial offices since Monday after an employment notice allegedly issued by the Health Service Board (HSB) to fill vacant posts circulated on WhatsApp.
Ambulance drivers, security guards, office orderlies, nurse aides, drivers and cooks were some of the posts that were advertised.
According to the notice, applicants were expected to access application forms from rural health care centres, district and provincial offices as well as from the provincial medical directors' offices.
Efforts to get a comment from Matabeleland South provincial PMD Dr Rudo Chikodzore and the Health Services Board were fruitless, but an official, who was part of the recruitment team addressed the crowd in the presence of the police.
He told the job seekers to leave the premises as they had recruited enough people for the day and urged them to come and try their luck today.
He also told them that they were not allowed to sleep at the offices.
When The Chronicle visited the PMC's offices yesterday, hundreds of job seekers, most of them women carrying babies on their backs were threatening health officials demanding explanations.
The job seekers said they were not happy with the recruitment process and accused nealth officials of accepting application forms from those who had offered them money.
Most of them said they went to the offices as early as 2 AM while others slept there only to be told that they had recruited enough for the day.
"This is not fair. I came here at about 10PM last night and I was expecting to be one of the first people to be served this morning. More people joined us in the early hours and we hoped it would be a first-comc- first-serve process," said job seeker Nokuzola Tshuma.
"We were shocked when one of the officials came to tell us that they had reached the limit of 60 people for the day?
Tshuma alleged that the officials were only serving those who had paid them $15 each.
"While we were still wondering how they reached that number, we learnt that people were being ordered to pay $15 each if they wanted to be recruited without joining the queue," added Tshuma.
"We saw people moving in and out of the offices while we patiently waited outside the gate. Little did we know that we were waiting here for nothing. We demanded to know what was happening and they responded by calling the police."
Another job seeker Phathisiwe Khumalo said it was unfortunate that they were being treated as criminals for demanding transparency.
"We simply asked them to tell us why they were asking people to pay money, which was not indicated on the HSB notice. They should have told us that those without money should not waste their time, instead of letting us queue here for several hours for nothing," she said.
Source - chronicle
